Small Office, Home Office Information

Who controls the purse strings?

Someone once said that writers are just children who have never grown up and Toni and I are certainly quick to agree. You see, we’re inquisitive - we love to poke and prode at things we don’t understand - we watch people, not because we’re voyeurs but because we want to see how people react in different situations. That helps us produce work that is more realistic and more likely to produce the desired results.

One of the places we watch people is at cafes in the tourist town where we live and that means we get to see a wide cross section of society. One of the interesting things we have observed is that in the fast majority of cases where a couple is involved it’s the female half of the couple who controls the money.

So when you’re doing your sales pitch to a couple that comes into your small business who do you look at?

I’ve talked about it here before but it’s definitely worth repeating because if you’re looking at the wrong person, if you’re talking to the male when it’s the female who controls the money you could be losing a sale every time you open your mouth.

Are you losing sales here?

A recent study in the United States has thrown up some interesting facts about just who is buying electronics.

The study showed that:

26% of women born between 1977 and 1994 plan to purchase a PC in the next 12 months compared to 20% of men from the same group.

25% of women in that group plan to purchase a mobile phone with advanced features in the same time period compared to 14% of all adults

28% of women in that age group plan to purchase a digital camera within the next 12 months compared to 21% of men in the same group

So how serious are you when it comes to selling to women?

If you’re an introvert then networking for your small business sure can suck

How do I know? Because I’m about as introverted as they come these days.

Fortunately Toni is the exact opposite. She loves meeting and talking to people and networking really is her thing. Quite frankly if she didn’t have that ability I doubt that our small business would be growing at the rate that it is.

Sadly, if you are introverted there is not instant cure and if you want to network and grow your small business you just have to work at it.

If you’re in the situation where you have to work at it then you might find this post - How to Network: For Introverts - helpful; I know I did.

Can you turn current news stories or situations into something positive for your small business?

We woke up this morning to a rather amusing story of an American Airlines plane that was forced to make an emergency landing in Nashville because of flatulence. Yes you read that correctly - it had to land because of flatulence and not turbulence.

It’s a story that is obviously going to get a lot of exposure around the world and within just a few hours one company that produces an anti-flatulence product had issued a press release about that product. They had seen an opportunity to promote their product and they had grabbed with both hands.

Can your small business respond to opportunities as quickly as that? Have you even thought that, by being responsive to local situations, you might be able to boost your bottom line?

Discover the secret to small business success right here

“So don’t even start your small business if you can’t handle hard work”

Well that’s not quite how I couched the message but if the recipient could read between the lines that was the basic message.

Another writer wrote to me earlier today wanting to know how I managed to get well paid jobs while all she could attract was $10.00 and hour gigs despite the fact that she had awards and qualifications and “had her name out there ” …

The secret of course is lots of hard work and long hours. Here on the Net qualifications don’t mean all that much - ability counts for much more.

Without those two you’re always going to be in the $10.00 mosh pit.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Who needs computers in a small business?

So yesterday I worked with one computer while my main one was in the shop getting a make-over. Now it’s back and I’m reloading software, trying to find disks that I haven’t used for three years, trying to remember usernames that I haven’t had to enter for almost as long, trying to remember URLs for direct access to pages …

COMPUTERS!!!!

WHO NEEDS THEM??????????

Sadly I do

Gee the beach looks good today. When we deliver the quote to the beachside cafe in a few moments Toni might just have to drag me back kicking and screaming

Yeah … I know it’s Sunday but …

Over the last couple of weeks my main desktop computer has begun to act rather strangely. Copying and pasting anything has become a real pain as often whatever I paste gets pasted twice - images are beginning top open from the bottom up instead of the top down and having a couple of Firefox windows open at the same time often leads to the computer locking up.

It’s also nearly 4 years old and has run almost 24/7 from the day it arrived. So now it’s time to for a new motherboard. I’ll keep the same processor but it’s going to go into a smaller box similar to the one I talked about here at Space the Final Frontier.

I’ll also be adding a new hard drive and the old one will become a slave for storage.

So all that means that today I’m backing everything up. Of course, I could just leave it till the computer comes back from the shop and then just transfer everything from the old hard drive to the new one but the files on the old hard drive are valuable to our small business so today is going to be spent backing everything up onto a a stand-alone hard drive that we use for storage.

Accidents can happen and important data can be lost when a small business computer goes in for repair.

After another couple of hard days I’m back with Friday’s links for your small business … on a Saturday

Over the last couple of weeks I guess I’ve been most noticeable for my absence … well that is all due to just one factor - a huge increase in the amount of work that’s being thrown at us. I guess we must be doing something right.

Anyway, on to Friday’s links.

The Sweet 16: Principles for Building a Successful Internet Business - both Toni and I got plenty of food for thought from this link.

Warning Label Generator the title is self-explanatory and the site might be handy if you need a warning label or sign in a hurry.

The National Sleep Research Project - what small business person ever gets enough sleep?

The Making of a LEGO - trust me, at 28,500 bricks every minute, Lego is taking over the world.

Pink Floyd Live - what can I say? It’s a recording of a live concert - possibly Thunder (I haven’t had time to sit back and watch it right through - and we’re both Pink Floyd fans